Edition guidelines

1. Text corpus

The text corpus comprises seven travel journals published by Johann Conrad Fischer between 1816 and 1853 ("first publication"):

Fischer, Johann Conrad: Tagebuch einer Reise von Coppenhagen nach Stokholm, im Frühjahr 1794. Schaffhausen: Hurter, 1845. [e-rara]
Fischer, Johann Conrad: Tagebuch einer im Jahr 1814 gemachten Reise über Paris nach London und einigen Fabrikstädten Englands vorzüglich in technologischer Hinsicht. Aarau: Sauerländer, 1816. [e-rara]
Fischer, Johann Conrad: Tagebuch einer zweiten Reise über Paris nach London und einigen Fabrikstädten Englands vorzüglich in technologischer Hinsicht. Aarau: Sauerländer, 1826. [e-rara]
Fischer, Johann Conrad: Fragmente aus dem Tagebuch dreier Reisen nach London und einigen Fabrikstädten Englands im Spätjahr von 1825, 1826 und 1827. Stuttgart und Tübingen: Cotta, 1829. [e-rara]
Fischer, Johann Conrad: Notizen auf der Reise über Paris nach London, Leeds, Low, Moore, Sheffield, und zurück im Sommer 1845. Schaffhausen: Ziegler, 1846. [e-rara]
Fischer, Johann Conrad: Notizen auf meiner Reise über Carlsruhe, Mannheim, Cöln, und Ostende nach London, Derby, Wingfield, Alfredton und Butterly Ironworks nach Sheffield, Liverpool, und zurück über Sheffield und London nach Schaffhausen im Spätjahr 1846. Schaffhausen: J. J. Ziegler'sche Buchdruckerei, 1847. [e-rara]
Fischer, Johann Conrad: Tagebuch einer Reise zu der Ausstellung in London und nach einigen Fabrikstädten in England im Sommer 1851. Schaffhausen: Murbach & Gelzer, 1853. [e-rara]

The reference texts are the copies of the Iron Library that have been digitised on e-rara. The contents have been OCR-read from e-rara for the digital edition and cleaned in a 1:1 comparison with the reference texts.

2. Text structure

The first publications consist of title page, preface, main text and sometimes dedication, epilogue or errata listings.

Chapters

For better understanding and navigation, the main texts in the digital edition are now divided into chapters that correspond to travel days, travel stages or thematic units. The chapter headings have been newly composed by the editing team.

Line breaks, sections and page breaks

The original line breaks are not reproduced. The section breaks from the first publication are retained, except where otherwise noted in footnotes. Page breaks are indicated in the texts and linked to the digitised editions on e-rara.

3. Orthography, punctuation, italics

Orthography and punctuation are taken faithfully from the first publication, both to the letter and to the character. An exception is the transcription of book titles from upper case to lower case. Italics are used for direct speech and foreign words where they exist in the first publication, but are not replaced. The special character æ is rendered as ae.

Obvious typographical errors from the first printing have been tacitly corrected. Errata that were listed in an appendix in the first publication have been corrected in the digital edition and commented on in a footnote.

4. Footnotes, comments

In addition to the footnotes concerning errata and text structure, further footnotes point out errors in content, uncertainties and anachronisms or explain the context. Fischer's annotations that already appear in the first publication are marked with *. New footnotes in the digital edition are numbered in Arabic.

5. Register data

A distinction is made between names mentioned (persons, families, organisations, historical and fictional figures), places (itinerary points and other geographical locations) and terms (events, objects, technical terms, subject headings). The register data are distinguished in the text, and are indexed and described in a register.

6. Names

The editing team has identified around 500 persons, institutions and organisations, created short biographies, added metadata and, in some cases, images/portraits and linked them to the usual norm data and Wikipedia.

7. Places

Around 800 places are marked in the text and indexed in the register. As far as possible, they are geographically referenced and located on a map. In the index, the identified places are provided with short descriptive texts and metadata, partly illustrated and linked to the common norm data and Wikipedia.

Geographical, political und historical places

The diaries cover the period from 1794 to 1851. In these almost 60 years, countries, nations and political constellations changed several times. The places in the register are therefore understood in a geographical and not a political sense, unless explicitly indicated. This also applies to places that were already historical in Fischer's time, such as ancient empires and cultures, for which the geographical place is representative (e.g. "Egypt" or "Rome"). Derived nouns (e.g. "French" under "France") or adjectival uses (e.g. "French" under "France") are also indexed as places.

Localisation/coordinates

If the coordinates of a location are not known, they are derived from the context for localisation and provided with a note in the register. Likewise, if the location has changed since the time of Johann Conrad Fischer, this is indicated in the register.

8. Keywords

The editing team has marked around 1100 terms in the text and indexed them in the register. These are events, objects, technical terms, publications or keywords. In the index, some of the terms are explained with short descriptive texts and images, provided with metadata and linked to the common norm data and Wikipedia.

9. Images

A collection of around 900 images has been compiled for the digital edition, which serve to illustrate the people, places and terms mentioned and described. Preference is given to images under a Creative Commons licence, ideally in the public domain. The image information is collected and reported separately in the archive database of the Georg Fischer Ltd Corporate Archives and is linked to the images in the edition. Numerous images have been sourced in the rare books collection of the Iron Library and in the holdings of the Corporate Archives of Georg Fischer Ltd.

10. Critical edition by Karl Schib

In 1951, the Schaffhausen historian Karl Schib edited and published a critical edition of all the diaries of Johann Conrad Fischer. Apart from the first publication by the author, this was the only edition of the diaries to date. Schib's extensive indexes of names and subjects were largely incorporated into the digital edition. Corresponding index entries in the digital edition identify the Schib edition as the source.

11. English Translation

The English translation is as close to the text as possible. Very long sentences are divided into several sentences in the translation for better comprehension. English expressions and quotations used by Fischer are reproduced in the original spelling in inverted commas.

Version 15 December 2023